Chapter 7 - The Sun-Dog Trail

SITKA CHARLEY smoked his pipe and gazed thoughtfully at the POLICE
GAZETTE illustration on the wall. For half an hour he had been
steadily regarding it, and for half an hour I had been slyly
watching him. Something was going on in that mind of his, and,
whatever it was, I knew it was well worth knowing. He had lived
life, and seen things, and performed that prodigy of prodigies,
namely, the turning of his back upon his own people, and, in so far
as it was possible for an Indian, becoming a white man even in his
mental processes. As he phrased it himself, he had come into the
warm, sat among us, by our fires, and become one of us. He had
never learned to read nor write, but his vocabulary was remarkable,
and more remarkable still was the completeness with which he had
assumed the white man's point of view, the white man's attitude
toward things.

We had struck this deserted cabin after a hard day on trail. The
dogs had been fed, the supper dishes washed, the beds made, and we
were now enjoying that most delicious hour that comes each day, and
but once each day, on the Alaskan trail, the hour when nothing
intervenes between the tired body and bed save the smoking of the
evening pipe. Some former denizen of the cabin had decorated its
walls with illustrations torn from magazines and newspapers, and it
was these illustrations that had held Sitka Charley's attention
from the moment of our arrival two hours before. He had studied
them intently, ranging from one to another and back again, and I
could see that there was uncertainty in his mind, and bepuzzlement.

"Well?" I finally broke the silence.

He took the pipe from his mouth and said simply, "I do not
understand."

He smoked on again, and again removed the pipe, using it to point
at the POLICE GAZETTE illustration.

"That picture - what does it mean? I do not understand."

I looked at the picture. A man, with a preposterously wicked face,
his right hand pressed dramatically to his heart, was falling
backward to the floor. Confronting him, with a face that was a
composite of destroying angel and Adonis, was a man holding a
smoking revolver.

"One man is killing the other man," I said, aware of a distinct
bepuzzlement of my own and of failure to explain.

"Why?" asked Sitka Charley.

"I do not know," I confessed.

"That picture is all end," he said. "It has no beginning."

"It is life," I said.

"Life has beginning," he objected.

I was silenced for the moment, while his eyes wandered on to an
adjoining decoration, a photographic reproduction of somebody's
"Leda and the Swan."

"That picture," he said, "has no beginning. It has no end. I do
not understand pictures."

"Look at that picture," I commanded, pointing to a third
decoration. "It means something. Tell me what it means to you."

He studied it for several minutes.

"The little girl is sick," he said finally. "That is the doctor
looking at her. They have been up all night - see, the oil is low
in the lamp, the first morning light is coming in at the window.
It is a great sickness; maybe she will die, that is why the doctor
looks so hard. That is the mother. It is a great sickness,
because the mother's head is on the table and she is crying."

"How do you know she is crying?" I interrupted. "You cannot see
her face. Perhaps she is asleep."

Sitka Charley looked at me in swift surprise, then back at the
picture. It was evident that he had not reasoned the impression.

"Perhaps she is asleep," he repeated. He studied it closely. "No,
she is not asleep. The shoulders show that she is not asleep. I
have seen the shoulders of a woman who cried. The mother is
crying. It is a very great sickness."

"And now you understand the picture," I cried.

He shook his head, and asked, "The little girl - does it die?"

It was my turn for silence.

"Does it die?" he reiterated. "You are a painter-man. Maybe you
know."

"No, I do not know," I confessed.

"It is not life," he delivered himself dogmatically. "In life
little girl die or get well. Something happen in life. In picture
nothing happen. No, I do not understand pictures."

His disappointment was patent. It was his desire to understand all
things that white men understand, and here, in this matter, he
failed. I felt, also, that there was challenge in his attitude.
He was bent upon compelling me to show him the wisdom of pictures.
Besides, he had remarkable powers of visualization. I had long
since learned this. He visualized everything. He saw life in
pictures, felt life in pictures, generalized life in pictures; and
yet he did not understand pictures when seen through other men's
eyes and expressed by those men with color and line upon canvas.

"Pictures are bits of life," I said. "We paint life as we see it.
For instance, Charley, you are coming along the trail. It is
night. You see a cabin. The window is lighted. You look through
the window for one second, or for two seconds, you see something,
and you go on your way. You saw maybe a man writing a letter. You
saw something without beginning or end. Nothing happened. Yet it
was a bit of life you saw. You remember it afterward. It is like
a picture in your memory. The window is the frame of the picture."

I could see that he was interested, and I knew that as I spoke he
had looked through the window and seen the man writing the letter.

"There is a picture you have painted that I understand," he said.
"It is a true picture. It has much meaning. It is in your cabin
at Dawson. It is a faro table. There are men playing. It is a
large game. The limit is off."

"How do you know the limit is off?" I broke in excitedly, for here
was where my work could be tried out on an unbiassed judge who knew
life only, and not art, and who was a sheer master of reality.
Also, I was very proud of that particular piece of work. I had
named it "The Last Turn," and I believed it to be one of the best
things I had ever done.

"There are no chips on the table", Sitka Charley explained. "The
men are playing with markers. That means the roof is the limit.
One man play yellow markers - maybe one yellow marker worth one
thousand dollars, maybe two thousand dollars. One man play red
markers. Maybe they are worth five hundred dollars, maybe one
thousand dollars. It is a very big game. Everybody play very
high, up to the roof. How do I know? You make the dealer with
blood little bit warm in face." (I was delighted.) "The lookout,
you make him lean forward in his chair. Why he lean forward? Why
his face very much quiet? Why his eyes very much bright? Why
dealer warm with blood a little bit in the face? Why all men very
quiet? - the man with yellow markers? the man with white markers?
the man with red markers? Why nobody talk? Because very much
money. Because last turn."

"How do you know it is the last turn?" I asked.

"The king is coppered, the seven is played open," he answered.
"Nobody bet on other cards. Other cards all gone. Everybody one
mind. Everybody play king to lose, seven to win. Maybe bank lose
twenty thousand dollars, maybe bank win. Yes, that picture I
understand."

"Yet you do not know the end!" I cried triumphantly. "It is the
last turn, but the cards are not yet turned. In the picture they
will never be turned. Nobody will ever know who wins nor who
loses."

"And the men will sit there and never talk," he said, wonder and
awe growing in his face. "And the lookout will lean forward, and
the blood will be warm in the face of the dealer. It is a strange
thing. Always will they sit there, always; and the cards will
never be turned."

"It is a picture," I said. "It is life. You have seen things like
it yourself."

He looked at me and pondered, then said, very slowly: "No, as you
say, there is no end to it. Nobody will ever know the end. Yet is
it a true thing. I have seen it. It is life."

For a long time he smoked on in silence, weighing the pictorial
wisdom of the white man and verifying it by the facts of life. He
nodded his head several times, and grunted once or twice. Then he
knocked the ashes from his pipe, carefully refilled it, and after a
thoughtful pause, lighted it again.

"Then have I, too, seen many pictures of life," he began; "pictures
not painted, but seen with the eyes. I have looked at them like
through the window at the man writing the letter. I have seen many
pieces of life, without beginning, without end, without
understanding."

With a sudden change of position he turned his eyes full upon me
and regarded me thoughtfully.

"Look you," he said; "you are a painter-man. How would you paint
this which I saw, a picture without beginning, the ending of which
I do not understand, a piece of life with the northern lights for a
candle and Alaska for a frame."

"It is a large canvas," I murmured.

But he ignored me, for the picture he had in mind was before his
eyes and he was seeing it.

"There are many names for this picture," he said. "But in the
picture there are many sun-dogs, and it comes into my mind to call
it 'The Sun-Dog Trail.' It was a long time ago, seven years ago,
the fall of '97, when I saw the woman first time. At Lake
Linderman I had one canoe, very good Peterborough canoe. I came
over Chilcoot Pass with two thousand letters for Dawson. I was
letter carrier. Everybody rush to Klondike at that time. Many
people on trail. Many people chop down trees and make boats. Last
water, snow in the air, snow on the ground, ice on the lake, on the
river ice in the eddies. Every day more snow, more ice. Maybe one
day, maybe three days, maybe six days, any day maybe freeze-up
come, then no more water, all ice, everybody walk, Dawson six
hundred miles, long time walk. Boat go very quick. Everybody want
to go boat. Everybody say, 'Charley, two hundred dollars you take
me in canoe,' 'Charley, three hundred dollars,' 'Charley, four
hundred dollars.' I say no, all the time I say no. I am letter
carrier.

"In morning I get to Lake Linderman. I walk all night and am much
tired. I cook breakfast, I eat, then I sleep on the beach three
hours. I wake up. It is ten o'clock. Snow is falling. There is
wind, much wind that blows fair. Also, there is a woman who sits
in the snow alongside. She is white woman, she is young, very
pretty, maybe she is twenty years old, maybe twenty-five years old.
She look at me. I look at her. She is very tired. She is no
dance-woman. I see that right away. She is good woman, and she is
very tired.

"'You are Sitka Charley,' she says. I get up quick and roll
blankets so snow does not get inside. 'I go to Dawson,' she says.
'I go in your canoe - how much?'

"I do not want anybody in my canoe. I do not like to say no. So I
say, 'One thousand dollars.' Just for fun I say it, so woman
cannot come with me, much better than say no. She look at me very
hard, then she says, 'When you start?' I say right away. Then she
says all right, she will give me one thousand dollars.

"What can I say? I do not want the woman, yet have I given my word
that for one thousand dollars she can come. I am surprised. Maybe
she make fun, too, so I say, 'Let me see thousand dollars.' And
that woman, that young woman, all alone on the trail, there in the
snow, she take out one thousand dollars, in greenbacks, and she put
them in my hand. I look at money, I look at her. What can I say?
I say, 'No, my canoe very small. There is no room for outfit.'
She laugh. She says, 'I am great traveller. This is my outfit.'
She kick one small pack in the snow. It is two fur robes, canvas
outside, some woman's clothes inside. I pick it up. Maybe thirty-
five pounds. I am surprised. She take it away from me. She says,
'Come, let us start.' She carries pack into canoe. What can I
say? I put my blankets into canoe. We start.

"And that is the way I saw the woman first time. The wind was
fair. I put up small sail. The canoe went very fast, it flew like
a bird over the high waves. The woman was much afraid. 'What for
you come Klondike much afraid?' I ask. She laugh at me, a hard
laugh, but she is still much afraid. Also is she very tired. I
run canoe through rapids to Lake Bennett. Water very bad, and
woman cry out because she is afraid. We go down Lake Bennett,
snow, ice, wind like a gale, but woman is very tired and go to
sleep.

"That night we make camp at Windy Arm. Woman sit by fire and eat
supper. I look at her. She is pretty. She fix hair. There is
much hair, and it is brown, also sometimes it is like gold in the
firelight, when she turn her head, so, and flashes come from it
like golden fire. The eyes are large and brown, sometimes warm
like a candle behind a curtain, sometimes very hard and bright like
broken ice when sun shines upon it. When she smile - how can I
say? - when she smile I know white man like to kiss her, just like
that, when she smile. She never do hard work. Her hands are soft,
like baby's hand. She is soft all over, like baby. She is not
thin, but round like baby; her arm, her leg, her muscles, all soft
and round like baby. Her waist is small, and when she stand up,
when she walk, or move her head or arm, it is - I do not know the
word - but it is nice to look at, like - maybe I say she is built
on lines like the lines of a good canoe, just like that, and when
she move she is like the movement of the good canoe sliding through
still water or leaping through water when it is white and fast and
angry. It is very good to see.

"Why does she come into Klondike, all alone, with plenty of money?
I do not know. Next day I ask her. She laugh and says: 'Sitka
Charley, that is none of your business. I give you one thousand
dollars take me to Dawson. That only is your business.' Next day
after that I ask her what is her name. She laugh, then she says,
'Mary Jones, that is my name.' I do not know her name, but I know
all the time that Mary Jones is not her name.

"It is very cold in canoe, and because of cold sometimes she not
feel good. Sometimes she feel good and she sing. Her voice is
like a silver bell, and I feel good all over like when I go into
church at Holy Cross Mission, and when she sing I feel strong and
paddle like hell. Then she laugh and says, 'You think we get to
Dawson before freeze-up, Charley?' Sometimes she sit in canoe and
is thinking far away, her eyes like that, all empty. She does not
see Sitka Charley, nor the ice, nor the snow. She is far away.
Very often she is like that, thinking far away. Sometimes, when
she is thinking far away, her face is not good to see. It looks
like a face that is angry, like the face of one man when he want to
kill another man.

"Last day to Dawson very bad. Shore-ice in all the eddies, mush-
ice in the stream. I cannot paddle. The canoe freeze to ice. I
cannot get to shore. There is much danger. All the time we go
down Yukon in the ice. That night there is much noise of ice.
Then ice stop, canoe stop, everything stop. 'Let us go to shore,'
the woman says. I say no, better wait. By and by, everything
start down-stream again. There is much snow. I cannot see. At
eleven o'clock at night, everything stop. At one o'clock
everything start again. At three o'clock everything stop. Canoe
is smashed like eggshell, but is on top of ice and cannot sink. I
hear dogs howling. We wait. We sleep. By and by morning come.
There is no more snow. It is the freeze-up, and there is Dawson.
Canoe smash and stop right at Dawson. Sitka Charley has come in
with two thousand letters on very last water.

"The woman rent a cabin on the hill, and for one week I see her no
more. Then, one day, she come to me. 'Charley,' she says, 'how do
you like to work for me? You drive dogs, make camp, travel with
me.' I say that I make too much money carrying letters. She says,
'Charley, I will pay you more money.' I tell her that pick-and-
shovel man get fifteen dollars a day in the mines. She says, 'That
is four hundred and fifty dollars a month.' And I say, 'Sitka
Charley is no pick-and-shovel man.' Then she says, 'I understand,
Charley. I will give you seven hundred and fifty dollars each
month.' It is a good price, and I go to work for her. I buy for
her dogs and sled. We travel up Klondike, up Bonanza and Eldorado,
over to Indian River, to Sulphur Creek, to Dominion, back across
divide to Gold Bottom and to Too Much Gold, and back to Dawson.
All the time she look for something, I do not know what. I am
puzzled. 'What thing you look for?' I ask. She laugh. 'You look
for gold?' I ask. She laugh. Then she says, 'That is none of your
business, Charley.' And after that I never ask any more.

"She has a small revolver which she carries in her belt.
Sometimes, on trail, she makes practice with revolver. I laugh.
'What for you laugh, Charley?' she ask. 'What for you play with
that?' I say. 'It is no good. It is too small. It is for a
child, a little plaything.' When we get back to Dawson she ask me
to buy good revolver for her. I buy a Colt's 44. It is very
heavy, but she carry it in her belt all the time.

"At Dawson comes the man. Which way he come I do not know. Only
do I know he is CHECHA-QUO - what you call tenderfoot. His hands
are soft, just like hers. He never do hard work. He is soft all
over. At first I think maybe he is her husband. But he is too
young. Also, they make two beds at night. He is maybe twenty
years old. His eyes blue, his hair yellow, he has a little
mustache which is yellow. His name is John Jones. Maybe he is her
brother. I do not know. I ask questions no more. Only I think
his name not John Jones. Other people call him Mr. Girvan. I do
not think that is his name. I do not think her name is Miss
Girvan, which other people call her. I think nobody know their
names.

"One night I am asleep at Dawson. He wake me up. He says, 'Get
the dogs ready; we start.' No more do I ask questions, so I get
the dogs ready and we start. We go down the Yukon. It is night-
time, it is November, and it is very cold - sixty-five below. She
is soft. He is soft. The cold bites. They get tired. They cry
under their breaths to themselves. By and by I say better we stop
and make camp. But they say that they will go on. Three times I
say better to make camp and rest, but each time they say they will
go on. After that I say nothing. All the time, day after day, is
it that way. They are very soft. They get stiff and sore. They
do not understand moccasins, and their feet hurt very much. They
limp, they stagger like drunken people, they cry under their
breaths; and all the time they say, 'On! on! We will go on!'

"They are like crazy people. All the time do they go on, and on.
Why do they go on? I do not know. Only do they go on. What are
they after? I do not know. They are not after gold. There is no
stampede. Besides, they spend plenty of money. But I ask
questions no more. I, too, go on and on, because I am strong on
the trail and because I am greatly paid.

"We make Circle City. That for which they look is not there. I
think now that we will rest, and rest the dogs. But we do not
rest, not for one day do we rest. 'Come,' says the woman to the
man, 'let us go on.' And we go on. We leave the Yukon. We cross
the divide to the west and swing down into the Tanana Country.
There are new diggings there. But that for which they look is not
there, and we take the back trail to Circle City.

"It is a hard journey. December is most gone. The days are short.
It is very cold. One morning it is seventy below zero. 'Better
that we don't travel to-day,' I say, 'else will the frost be
unwarmed in the breathing and bite all the edges of our lungs.
After that we will have bad cough, and maybe next spring will come
pneumonia.' But they are CHECHA-QUO. They do not understand the
trail. They are like dead people they are so tired, but they say,
'Let us go on.' We go on. The frost bites their lungs, and they
get the dry cough. They cough till the tears run down their
cheeks. When bacon is frying they must run away from the fire and
cough half an hour in the snow. They freeze their cheeks a little
bit, so that the skin turns black and is very sore. Also, the man
freezes his thumb till the end is like to come off, and he must
wear a large thumb on his mitten to keep it warm. And sometimes,
when the frost bites hard and the thumb is very cold, he must take
off the mitten and put the hand between his legs next to the skin,
so that the thumb may get warm again.

"We limp into Circle City, and even I, Sitka Charley, am tired. It
is Christmas Eve. I dance, drink, make a good time, for to-morrow
is Christmas Day and we will rest. But no. It is five o'clock in
the morning - Christmas morning. I am two hours asleep. The man
stand by my bed. 'Come, Charley,' he says, 'harness the dogs. We
start.'

"Have I not said that I ask questions no more? They pay me seven
hundred and fifty dollars each month. They are my masters. I am
their man. If they say, 'Charley, come, let us start for hell,' I
will harness the dogs, and snap the whip, and start for hell. So I
harness the dogs, and we start down the Yukon. Where do we go?
They do not say. Only do they say, 'On! on! We will go on!'

"They are very weary. They have travelled many hundreds of miles,
and they do not understand the way of the trail. Besides, their
cough is very bad - the dry cough that makes strong men swear and
weak men cry. But they go on. Every day they go on. Never do
they rest the dogs. Always do they buy new dogs. At every camp,
at every post, at every Indian village, do they cut out the tired
dogs and put in fresh dogs. They have much money, money without
end, and like water they spend it. They are crazy? Sometimes I
think so, for there is a devil in them that drives them on and on,
always on. What is it that they try to find? It is not gold.
Never do they dig in the ground. I think a long time. Then I
think it is a man they try to find. But what man? Never do we see
the man. Yet are they like wolves on the trail of the kill. But
they are funny wolves, soft wolves, baby wolves who do not
understand the way of the trail. They cry aloud in their sleep at
night. In their sleep they moan and groan with the pain of their
weariness. And in the day, as they stagger along the trail, they
cry under their breaths. They are funny wolves.

"We pass Fort Yukon. We pass Fort Hamilton. We pass Minook.
January has come and nearly gone. The days are very short. At
nine o'clock comes daylight. At three o'clock comes night. And it
is cold. And even I, Sitka Charley, am tired. Will we go on
forever this way without end? I do not know. But always do I look
along the trail for that which they try to find. There are few
people on the trail. Sometimes we travel one hundred miles and
never see a sign of life. It is very quiet. There is no sound.
Sometimes it snows, and we are like wandering ghosts. Sometimes it
is clear, and at midday the sun looks at us for a moment over the
hills to the south. The northern lights flame in the sky, and the
sun-dogs dance, and the air is filled with frost-dust.

"I am Sitka Charley, a strong man. I was born on the trail, and
all my days have I lived on the trail. And yet have these two baby
wolves made me very tired. I am lean, like a starved cat, and I am
glad of my bed at night, and in the morning am I greatly weary.
Yet ever are we hitting the trail in the dark before daylight, and
still on the trail does the dark after nightfall find us. These
two baby wolves! If I am lean like a starved cat, they are lean
like cats that have never eaten and have died. Their eyes are sunk
deep in their heads, bright sometimes as with fever, dim and cloudy
sometimes like the eyes of the dead. Their cheeks are hollow like
caves in a cliff. Also are their cheeks black and raw from many
freezings. Sometimes it is the woman in the morning who says, 'I
cannot get up. I cannot move. Let me die.' And it is the man who
stands beside her and says, 'Come, let us go on.' And they go on.
And sometimes it is the man who cannot get up, and the woman says,
'Come, let us go on.' But the one thing they do, and always do, is
to go on. Always do they go on.

"Sometimes, at the trading posts, the man and woman get letters. I
do not know what is in the letters. But it is the scent that they
follow, these letters themselves are the scent. One time an Indian
gives them a letter. I talk with him privately. He says it is a
man with one eye who gives him the letter, a man who travels fast
down the Yukon. That is all. But I know that the baby wolves are
after the man with the one eye.

"It is February, and we have travelled fifteen hundred miles. We
are getting near Bering Sea, and there are storms and blizzards.
The going is hard. We come to Anvig. I do not know, but I think
sure they get a letter at Anvig, for they are much excited, and
they say, 'Come, hurry, let us go on.' But I say we must buy grub,
and they say we must travel light and fast. Also, they say that we
can get grub at Charley McKeon's cabin. Then do I know that they
take the big cut-off, for it is there that Charley McKeon lives
where the Black Rock stands by the trail.

"Before we start, I talk maybe two minutes with the priest at
Anvig. Yes, there is a man with one eye who has gone by and who
travels fast. And I know that for which they look is the man with
the one eye. We leave Anvig with little grub, and travel light and
fast. There are three fresh dogs bought in Anvig, and we travel
very fast. The man and woman are like mad. We start earlier in
the morning, we travel later at night. I look sometimes to see
them die, these two baby wolves, but they will not die. They go on
and on. When the dry cough take hold of them hard, they hold their
hands against their stomach and double up in the snow, and cough,
and cough, and cough. They cannot walk, they cannot talk. Maybe
for ten minutes they cough, maybe for half an hour, and then they
straighten up, the tears from the coughing frozen on their faces,
and the words they say are, 'Come, let us go on.'

"Even I, Sitka Charley, am greatly weary, and I think seven hundred
and fifty dollars is a cheap price for the labor I do. We take the
big cut-off, and the trail is fresh. The baby wolves have their
noses down to the trail, and they say, 'Hurry!' All the time do
they say, 'Hurry! Faster! Faster!' It is hard on the dogs. We
have not much food and we cannot give them enough to eat, and they
grow weak. Also, they must work hard. The woman has true sorrow
for them, and often, because of them, the tears are in her eyes.
But the devil in her that drives her on will not let her stop and
rest the dogs.

"And then we come upon the man with the one eye. He is in the snow
by the trail, and his leg is broken. Because of the leg he has
made a poor camp, and has been lying on his blankets for three days
and keeping a fire going. When we find him he is swearing. He
swears like hell. Never have I heard a man swear like that man. I
am glad. Now that they have found that for which they look, we
will have rest. But the woman says, 'Let us start. Hurry!'

"I am surprised. But the man with the one eye says, 'Never mind
me. Give me your grub. You will get more grub at McKeon's cabin
to-morrow. Send McKeon back for me. But do you go on.' Here is
another wolf, an old wolf, and he, too, thinks but the one thought,
to go on. So we give him our grub, which is not much, and we chop
wood for his fire, and we take his strongest dogs and go on. We
left the man with one eye there in the snow, and he died there in
the snow, for McKeon never went back for him. And who that man
was, and why he came to be there, I do not know. But I think he
was greatly paid by the man and the woman, like me, to do their
work for them.

"That day and that night we had nothing to eat, and all next day we
travelled fast, and we were weak with hunger. Then we came to the
Black Rock, which rose five hundred feet above the trail. It was
at the end of the day. Darkness was coming, and we could not find
the cabin of McKeon. We slept hungry, and in the morning looked
for the cabin. It was not there, which was a strange thing, for
everybody knew that McKeon lived in a cabin at Black Rock. We were
near to the coast, where the wind blows hard and there is much
snow. Everywhere there were small hills of snow where the wind had
piled it up. I have a thought, and I dig in one and another of the
hills of snow. Soon I find the walls of the cabin, and I dig down
to the door. I go inside. McKeon is dead. Maybe two or three
weeks he is dead. A sickness had come upon him so that he could
not leave the cabin. The wind and the snow had covered the cabin.
He had eaten his grub and died. I looked for his cache, but there
was no grub in it.

"'Let us go on,' said the woman. Her eyes were hungry, and her
hand was upon her heart, as with the hurt of something inside. She
bent back and forth like a tree in the wind as she stood there.
'Yes, let us go on,' said the man. His voice was hollow, like the
KLONK of an old raven, and he was hunger-mad. His eyes were like
live coals of fire, and as his body rocked to and fro, so rocked
his soul inside. And I, too, said, 'Let us go on.' For that one
thought, laid upon me like a lash for every mile of fifteen hundred
miles, had burned itself into my soul, and I think that I, too, was
mad. Besides, we could only go on, for there was no grub. And we
went on, giving no thought to the man with the one eye in the snow.

"There is little travel on the big cut-off. Sometimes two or three
months and nobody goes by. The snow had covered the trail, and
there was no sign that men had ever come or gone that way. All day
the wind blew and the snow fell, and all day we travelled, while
our stomachs gnawed their desire and our bodies grew weaker with
every step they took. Then the woman began to fall. Then the man.
I did not fall, but my feet were heavy and I caught my toes and
stumbled many times.

"That night is the end of February. I kill three ptarmigan with
the woman's revolver, and we are made somewhat strong again. But
the dogs have nothing to eat. They try to eat their harness, which
is of leather and walrus-hide, and I must fight them off with a
club and hang all the harness in a tree. And all night they howl
and fight around that tree. But we do not mind. We sleep like
dead people, and in the morning get up like dead people out of
their graves and go on along the trail.

"That morning is the 1st of March, and on that morning I see the
first sign of that after which the baby wolves are in search. It
is clear weather, and cold. The sun stay longer in the sky, and
there are sun-dogs flashing on either side, and the air is bright
with frost-dust. The snow falls no more upon the trail, and I see
the fresh sign of dogs and sled. There is one man with that
outfit, and I see in the snow that he is not strong. He, too, has
not enough to eat. The young wolves see the fresh sign, too, and
they are much excited. 'Hurry!' they say. All the time they say,
'Hurry! Faster, Charley, faster!'

"We make hurry very slow. All the time the man and the woman fall
down. When they try to ride on sled the dogs are too weak, and the
dogs fall down. Besides, it is so cold that if they ride on the
sled they will freeze. It is very easy for a hungry man to freeze.
When the woman fall down, the man help her up. Sometimes the woman
help the man up. By and by both fall down and cannot get up, and I
must help them up all the time, else they will not get up and will
die there in the snow. This is very hard work, for I am greatly
weary, and as well I must drive the dogs, and the man and woman are
very heavy with no strength in their bodies. So, by and by, I,
too, fall down in the snow, and there is no one to help me up. I
must get up by myself. And always do I get up by myself, and help
them up, and make the dogs go on.

"That night I get one ptarmigan, and we are very hungry. And that
night the man says to me, 'What time start to-morrow, Charley?' It
is like the voice of a ghost. I say, 'All the time you make start
at five o'clock.' 'To-morrow,' he says, 'we will start at three
o'clock.' I laugh in great bitterness, and I say, 'You are dead
man.' And he says, 'To-morrow we will start at three o'clock.'

"And we start at three o'clock, for I am their man, and that which
they say is to be done, I do. It is clear and cold, and there is
no wind. When daylight comes we can see a long way off. And it is
very quiet. We can hear no sound but the beat of our hearts, and
in the silence that is a very loud sound. We are like sleep-
walkers, and we walk in dreams until we fall down; and then we know
we must get up, and we see the trail once more and bear the beating
of our hearts. Sometimes, when I am walking in dreams this way, I
have strange thoughts. Why does Sitka Charley live? I ask myself.
Why does Sitka Charley work hard, and go hungry, and have all this
pain? For seven hundred and fifty dollars a month, I make the
answer, and I know it is a foolish answer. Also is it a true
answer. And after that never again do I care for money. For that
day a large wisdom came to me. There was a great light, and I saw
clear, and I knew that it was not for money that a man must live,
but for a happiness that no man can give, or buy, or sell, and that
is beyond all value of all money in the world.

"In the morning we come upon the last-night camp of the man who is
before us. It is a poor camp, the kind a man makes who is hungry
and without strength. On the snow there are pieces of blanket and
of canvas, and I know what has happened. His dogs have eaten their
harness, and he has made new harness out of his blankets. The man
and woman stare hard at what is to be seen, and as I look at them
my back feels the chill as of a cold wind against the skin. Their
eyes are toil-mad and hunger-mad, and burn like fire deep in their
heads. Their faces are like the faces of people who have died of
hunger, and their cheeks are black with the dead flesh of many
freezings. 'Let us go on,' says the man. But the woman coughs and
falls in the snow. It is the dry cough where the frost has bitten
the lungs. For a long time she coughs, then like a woman crawling
out of her grave she crawls to her feet. The tears are ice upon
her cheeks, and her breath makes a noise as it comes and goes, and
she says, 'Let us go on.'

"We go on. And we walk in dreams through the silence. And every
time we walk is a dream and we are without pain; and every time we
fall down is an awakening, and we see the snow and the mountains
and the fresh trail of the man who is before us, and we know all
our pain again. We come to where we can see a long way over the
snow, and that for which they look is before them. A mile away
there are black spots upon the snow. The black spots move. My
eyes are dim, and I must stiffen my soul to see. And I see one man
with dogs and a sled. The baby wolves see, too. They can no
longer talk, but they whisper, 'On, on. Let us hurry!'

"And they fall down, but they go on. The man who is before us, his
blanket harness breaks often, and he must stop and mend it. Our
harness is good, for I have hung it in trees each night. At eleven
o'clock the man is half a mile away. At one o'clock he is a
quarter of a mile away. He is very weak. We see him fall down
many times in the snow. One of his dogs can no longer travel, and
he cuts it out of the harness. But he does not kill it. I kill it
with the axe as I go by, as I kill one of my dogs which loses its
legs and can travel no more.

"Now we are three hundred yards away. We go very slow. Maybe in
two, three hours we go one mile. We do not walk. All the time we
fall down. We stand up and stagger two steps, maybe three steps,
then we fall down again. And all the time I must help up the man
and woman. Sometimes they rise to their knees and fall forward,
maybe four or five times before they can get to their feet again
and stagger two or three steps and fall. But always do they fall
forward. Standing or kneeling, always do they fall forward,
gaining on the trail each time by the length of their bodies.

"Sometimes they crawl on hands and knees like animals that live in
the forest. We go like snails, like snails that are dying we go so
slow. And yet we go faster than the man who is before us. For he,
too, falls all the time, and there is no Sitka Charley to lift him
up. Now he is two hundred yards away. After a long time he is one
hundred yards away.

"It is a funny sight. I want to laugh out loud, Ha! ha! just like
that, it is so funny. It is a race of dead men and dead dogs. It
is like in a dream when you have a nightmare and run away very fast
for your life and go very slow. The man who is with me is mad.
The woman is mad. I am mad. All the world is mad, and I want to
laugh, it is so funny.

"The stranger-man who is before us leaves his dogs behind and goes
on alone across the snow. After a long time we come to the dogs.
They lie helpless in the snow, their harness of blanket and canvas
on them, the sled behind them, and as we pass them they whine to us
and cry like babies that are hungry.

"Then we, too, leave our dogs and go on alone across the snow. The
man and the woman are nearly gone, and they moan and groan and sob,
but they go on. I, too, go on. I have but one thought. It is to
come up to the stranger-man. Then it is that I shall rest, and not
until then shall I rest, and it seems that I must lie down and
sleep for a thousand years, I am so tired.

"The stranger-man is fifty yards away, all alone in the white snow.
He falls and crawls, staggers, and falls and crawls again. He is
like an animal that is sore wounded and trying to run from the
hunter. By and by he crawls on hands and knees. He no longer
stands up. And the man and woman no longer stand up. They, too,
crawl after him on hands and knees. But I stand up. Sometimes I
fall, but always do I stand up again.

"It is a strange thing to see. All about is the snow and the
silence, and through it crawl the man and the woman, and the
stranger-man who goes before. On either side the sun are sun-dogs,
so that there are three suns in the sky. The frost-dust is like
the dust of diamonds, and all the air is filled with it. Now the
woman coughs, and lies still in the snow until the fit has passed,
when she crawls on again. Now the man looks ahead, and he is
blear-eyed as with old age and must rub his eyes so that he can see
the stranger-man. And now the stranger-man looks back over his
shoulder. And Sitka Charley, standing upright, maybe falls down
and stands upright again.

"After a long time the stranger-man crawls no more. He stands
slowly upon his feet and rocks back and forth. Also does he take
off one mitten and wait with revolver in his hand, rocking back and
forth as he waits. His face is skin and bones and frozen black.
It is a hungry face. The eyes are deep-sunk in his head, and the
lips are snarling. The man and woman, too, get upon their feet and
they go toward him very slowly. And all about is the snow and the
silence. And in the sky are three suns, and all the air is
flashing with the dust of diamonds.

"And thus it was that I, Sitka Charley, saw the baby wolves make
their kill. No word is spoken. Only does the stranger-man snarl
with his hungry face. Also does he rock to and fro, his shoulders
drooping, his knees bent, and his legs wide apart so that he does
not fall down. The man and the woman stop maybe fifty feet away.
Their legs, too, are wide apart so that they do not fall down, and
their bodies rock to and fro. The stranger-man is very weak. His
arm shakes, so that when he shoots at the man his bullet strikes in
the snow. The man cannot take off his mitten. The stranger-man
shoots at him again, and this time the bullet goes by in the air.
Then the man takes the mitten in his teeth and pulls it off. But
his hand is frozen and he cannot hold the revolver, and it fails in
the snow. I look at the woman. Her mitten is off, and the big
Colt's revolver is in her hand. Three times she shoot, quick, just
like that. The hungry face of the stranger-man is still snarling
as he falls forward into the snow.

"They do not look at the dead man. 'Let us go on,' they say. And
we go on. But now that they have found that for which they look,
they are like dead. The last strength has gone out of them. They
can stand no more upon their feet. They will not crawl, but desire
only to close their eyes and sleep. I see not far away a place for
camp. I kick them. I have my dog-whip, and I give them the lash
of it. They cry aloud, but they must crawl. And they do crawl to
the place for camp. I build fire so that they will not freeze.
Then I go back for sled. Also, I kill the dogs of the stranger-man
so that we may have food and not die. I put the man and woman in
blankets and they sleep. Sometimes I wake them and give them
little bit of food. They are not awake, but they take the food.
The woman sleep one day and a half. Then she wake up and go to
sleep again. The man sleep two days and wake up and go to sleep
again. After that we go down to the coast at St. Michaels. And
when the ice goes out of Bering Sea, the man and woman go away on a
steamship. But first they pay me my seven hundred and fifty
dollars a month. Also, they make me a present of one thousand
dollars. And that was the year that Sitka Charley gave much money
to the Mission at Holy Cross."

"But why did they kill the man?" I asked.

Sitka Charley delayed reply until he had lighted his pipe. He
glanced at the POLICE GAZETTE illustration and nodded his head at
it familiarly. Then he said, speaking slowly and ponderingly:

"I have thought much. I do not know. It is something that
happened. It is a picture I remember. It is like looking in at
the window and seeing the man writing a letter. They came into my
life and they went out of my life, and the picture is as I have
said, without beginning, the end without understanding."

"You have painted many pictures in the telling," I said.

"Ay," he nodded his head. "But they were without beginning and
without end."